Anyone experienced this? Our 4 yr old son has been a very good sleeper since he was a baby but just about a few months ago started getting scared of the dark, shadows, things in his room. We decided to move him into a smaller bed in a smaller bedroom next to our room and that has made the problem worse. He is actually less scared at the get go and even falls asleep on his own but about 1 am he wakes up every morning crying outside our door asking to sleep in our room. Has anyone gone through this? We aren't sure what to do -- for now we've let him sleep with us but I'm not really fond of the idea. I feel like I want more privacy and he should be fine sleeping in his room. He is fine for the first part of the night but when he wakes up (why is he waking up in the middle of the night?) he gets scared. Just looking for any advice...
MommaBunny
01-10-2009, 11:53 PM
I'd suggest that you continue letting him sleep in your bed for the time being, but encourage him to feel comfortable in his own room, too. A trick that worked for my friend was buying her DS a "special" blanket. He slept with the special blanket in his parents' bed for about a week, then started to associate it with comfort. Once it smelled and felt like his parents' bed, he was pretty much okay with sleeping alone as long as he had it with him. Lovies are great.
turtle2who
01-11-2009, 06:33 PM
I had the same thing happen with my ds a few months back. He is 3 1/2 now. He would go o sleep okay but wake in the middle of the night and want to come to bed with us. There was no talking to him, or anything- he was a complete wreck and could not be reasoned with. It was almost like he wasn't himself- like he was still half asleep or something.
We did not handle it well since we don't sleep well with him in our bed. (He is a restless sleeper- thrashes around and kicks me all night.) So we fought it- tried to talk to him (he didn't "hear" us,) laid with him (he could not relax and go back to sleep knowing we would leave him when he did,) and finally got angry and just told him to stay in bed and go to sleep (lots of crying and screaming and nobody sleeping.) It got worse and worse- he just woke up earlier and earlier until he was waking up around the time we went to bed! Ugh. What it came down to was that he was scared for whatever reason and we were trying to force him to not be scared or deal with it or whatever and it OBVIOUSLY wasn't working.
Finally we decided to relax (and grow up) and deal with it. I did a few things. I moved his furniture so there were no hidden nooks or dark corners where "monsters" could hide. We also took his bed off the frame so they couldn't go under the bed (his idea.) We also had a talk about how they are just in your imagination- which he thought was hilarious. I gave him his sister's queen size bed and made it as much like ours as I could- same kind of blankets and pillows, flannel sheets, etc. So it "felt" the same to be in it. I also got a body pillow to make the bed feel more crowded- LOL. (He sleeps snuggled up next to it now.)
I made bedtime as relaxed and stress free as possible. If he wants me to lay with him, I do. I tell him I will come back and check on him. If he wakes in the night sometimes I will go lay with him in his bed if it's early in the night. If I fall asleep there it's fine since it's so cozy. If not, he usually falls back to sleep quickly now that he is not worried I will leave him (I don't know why this changed. As soon as we relaxed and stopped fighting the whole nighttime waking thing, he relaxed too!) He started sleeping longer before waking to come to our bed. He usually sleeps until 5:30 then joins us and goes back to sleep until 7. If he comes earlier and is thrashing around, I get up and go to his bed to sleep all by myself. It is like heaven! LOL Lots of days he just comes in at 7 when he wakes for the day.
Anyway- I guess what helped us most was relaxing about it and just giving him what he needed. Then he relaxed and has gotten to be a better and better sleeper.
I don't know if any of that helped. Good luck though!
jmred
01-12-2009, 06:00 AM
I have not gone through this, but have you tried a night light? That helped my older kiddos when they were having night terrors when they were little. Good luck mama! Hope he outgrows it soon!:hugs:
